[SPOILERS - PBEM17] Kyan Does Dallas. The Orange Sensation.

[oledavy]

Sent the following to Shoot, we'll see what he says.

Yes, I was planning on resettling the SevenSpirits and Pindicator locations

[oledavy]

[COLOR="Green"]Dave,

I was also planning to resettle the SevenSpirits location. Seeing as Zakalwe is the Jewish holy city and I am likely to be switching into Free Religion once the war is over it just seems like a city spot that would be really culturally cramped for anyone but me. Perhaps we could agree to split up the spots of SevenSpirits and Pindicator (assuming Darrell has no intentions for either of them too I guess)?

Shoot[/COLOR]

[oledavy]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"]Hey Shoot -

I'm creative, so between that and a cheap theater, I think I can hold the first ring of tiles against holy city culture. I also already have all my settlers out, so if I don't settle its wasted food-hammers for me.

However, if you're set on possessing the site, I would be willing to concede it and trade you my settler to found the city. However, I would like something of equal value in return.

Dave[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Green"]Dave,

I am rather set on that site in all honesty, although I am willing to give up the second further East one. What would you say in exchange for two workers for the settler? I would be giving more food-hammers for it, and I'm sure you can use them on the mainland of Rego's land (I can in fact deliver them on the mainland whenever I next see the save).

If you aren't interested in workers, I am sure we could work something out regarding whatever survives my assault on Plako.

Shoot[/COLOR]

[oledavy]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"]Hey Shoot -

Do you have time to spare sometime today or tomorrow so we can sort out things regarding the SevenSpirits location?

Dave[/COLOR]

Yeah, I'm not really digging Shoot's offer. I have no real need for workers at this point, and he doesn't offer anything in return for the city site. Just a settler for worker trade.

If I wanted to be a real jerk about it, I could just wait a couple turns when the game-long NAP between us comes into effect after the fall of Plako and then settle the city site, daring him to do anything about it.

So, going to try to catch him in chat sometime and get things sorted. In the meantime, I moved off the settler I had prepped for the site. I can still settle it next turn if I want, but the Pindicator location will be delayed. I have more settlers inbound, however, so it won't be much of a delay.

[oledavy]

Well, it seems as though Shoot's assault was successful. I'll be typing up a turn report and post-mortem thoughts on the whole conflict later. As for my thread:

[oledavy]

This is the turn update I started writing before Rego's demise:


The game is moving again after a three day hiatus.

[SIZE="3"]Report from the Eastern Front[/SIZE]

Plako is falling next turn, no doubt about it. Rego has eleven rifles and three machine guns manning the city's defenses. Shoot has sixteen infantry, five rifles, and four cannons ready for the attack. In the unlikely event he fails, I have plenty of troops on standby to take the city on my own.

So, here's the situation before the final assault:



[SIZE="3"]In Other News[/SIZE]

I checked when I got back into the game, and NH is right: the Apostolic Palace is locked into the religion its of the original founder.

So, yeah...I wasted 500 beakers on a tech I didn't need.

For what its worth, it looks like I'll be the Jewish pope, ending millennia of Incan domination of the papacy



After pressing end turn, I realized I made a potentially major mistake:



I landed a rifle and settler to re-found Stalingrad. I should have landed them one tile south so Rego wouldn't have visibility on them, while still retaining the ability to settle next turn. Fortunately, Rego did not notice this until after he played his turn and did not kill them. He informed me of this over gmail, saying I was lucky.

I regained espionage visibility on one of NoSpace's cities again last turn.



There's a mixed naval stack to the north of the city: frigates, a trireme and a galleon.

Darrell researched rocketry this last turn, and additionally nabbed drama at some earlier point, which I had missed. NoSpace finished rocketry next turn.

For visual reference, the city site me and Shoot are fighting over is those city ruins east of Zakalwe.

[oledavy]

Twenty-seven turns after kicking it off, World War II is over.



First off, my hat is off to Rego. This was my first PBEM war, and Dan Miller made it a memorable one - fighting like a demon and making us pay for every tile. I stopped keeping track of losses awhile back, but I know that I lost approximately four units for every three Rego lost, and that Shoot's losses were similar. There were a couple moves I didn't quite understand at the time, but overall, he put up a fantastic defense and fought it out until the very end.

I'm looking forward to reading your thread when this game is over to see what you were thinking during all that.

As for the war itself, I made more than my fair share of tactical blunders. The top four that come to mind (in chronological order) are:

1. Holding Tatan instead of razing it.
2. Not anticipating a sneak attack on Nowitzkiville and losing four airships and East Indiamen.
3. Moving my mass rifle stack onto the grasslands south of Plako to be utterly destroyed.
4. Exposing my naval stack to be hammered by his destroyers.

Overall, I like to think that on the strategic level, I conducted the war pretty well: always capitalizing on my naval advantage to threaten a maximum number of cities, coordinating with my allies, and possessing the right mix of forces for the task at hand. I think the best move I made was the decision to tech physics before the war and build up a slew of airships. They allowed me to still make progress despite my overall lack of ground forces at the very beginning, and minimized my casualties throughout. Additionally, they allowed me to always know where Rego's forces were located - which was a huge advantage. On the tactical level, I think I displayed a minimum of tactical competency punctuated by major blunders like the ones listed above.

So yeah....I still have a lot to learn about warfare in civilization. If anyone wants to offer a critique on how I can improve, I would appreciate it

[oledavy]

Spoke to Shoot, got a variety of stuff straightened out.

He offered me Plako in game, I take control of the city next turn.

We went back and forth on the SevenSpirits location, I eventually just gave up and conceded it. We're going ahead with trading a pair of workers for a settler.

He's getting my five loaned airships back to me next turn and reimbursing me for the lost East Indiamen. In the coming turns, he'll be gifting me back my East Indiamen. He asked to keep them for a few more turns while he transfers his forces back to his mainland.

I feel like I should have been more aggressive in regards to the SevenSpirits location. However, I didn't really feel like pushing for it at this point. He does have a legitimate claim to the location, even if I could technically seize it for myself.

I sent this off to him to confirm our NAP.

[COLOR="DarkOrange"]Hey,

One quick note. This email is just to confirm the existence of the game-long NAP between our civs - standard unit gifting and right of passage clauses in effect.

Dave[/COLOR]

It anyone is curious, I take "standard clauses" to mean: no gifting units to a third party to attack, and no allowing an enemy army to move through your territory to attack the other.

Shoot's going to have a surplus incense after he refounds ActionDrip, which would be rather nice to have. I'm going to hit him up regarding it next time we talk.

[oledavy]

Some lessons I drew from this war:

A major reason I sought a war in this game was to make up for my lack of micro skills - figuring I could make up for my weakness if I had more land to work with than my opponents.

A good example of this being done sucessfully is Ranamar and SevenSpirits in PBEM19. However, in hindsight, there are two major differences between that war and this one.

1. Seven managed to execute and win that war with a relatively small investment of forces. Fighting wars of conquest to acquire more territory is simply suicidal after drafting comes into play. The defender simply has too many advantages. Wars of this sort should not be pursued during this time unless you are the tech leader or are reeling in a runaway.

2. They fought and won that war an era earlier than I fought mine - allowing them more time to bring the new lands into play. Given enough time, I could leverage my new territory into a decisive tech lead, but it will not be until after NoSpace and Darrell launch their spaceship. I fought this war an era too late to accomplish what I wanted.

Without tech-trading, civ4 lacks a rubber-band mechanism to allow civs that fall behind to remain competitive. This means that little mistakes snowball into losing positions later on. I thought that a late war of conquest could serve as that elastic to pull me into parity with everyone, and I was wrong.

[oledavy]

Last spammy thread update, I promise

Last turn, I finished the ironworks in Constantinople and the National Epic in Damascus. The Sistine Chapel is due in six turns in Constantinople.

That's all folks!